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Betsy's Backyard Blog

Betsy Freese is an Executive Editor for Meredith Agrimedia, including Living the Country Life and Successful Farming. She grew up on a fruit farm in Maryland (see www.strawberryfarm.com) and has an agricultural journalism degree from Iowa State University. She and her husband, Bob, a veterinarian, live on a farm in Iowa where they raise sheep, hay, corn, and soybeans.

I visited farms in northern Iowa this week and saw many flooded fields and swollen creeks. It's always either too much or too little rain. Southern Minnesota just set the record for June rainfall. More is falling.

The creek above is actually a drainage ditch that feeds into a lake 2 miles away. The farmer has lovely grass buffer strips that help to clean the water running off fields. Without this grass the water would have even more sediment than it does now.

Below is a field near Kensett, Iowa, This was taken a day before another 3 inches of rain fell. I image the whole field is under water today.

Bob finally baled the first cutting of alfalfa (mixed with a lot of wild mustard) and the kids stacked it in the barn. First cutting is never the best hay, but you have to get it off the field for the prime second crop to grow. Now it can rain!

The strawberry picking season is in full gear at my home farm in Maryland, Walnut Springs Farm, strawberryfarm.com. The weather has been beautiful and customers abundant. Dad is still recovering from a fall a few months ago, using a cane and tiring more easily, but he's doing well.

The bad news is that a frost in April killed the buds on my sister's sweet cherry trees, so there will be no cherry picking this year.

Red and black raspberries will be ready later in June, and blueberries in July. Always visit the web site before coming to the farm, or call 410-398-345. Picking days and times vary due to weather.

I planted potatoes on Easter weekend and they are growing well. This week I hilled them and then covered them with straw. The red potatoes are already starting to bloom. I will leave them in the ground until late July when I will dig them all, sort, and enter them in the county fair. I may not be able to wait that long on the red potatoes. Boiled new potatoes with butter and salt. Yummy.

A few rebel lambs climb the compost pile, above, and force Bob to shoo them off and chase them around the pile.

An occasional lamb or ewe doesn't come running because her head is stuck in the woven wire fence. (The grass is not greener over there, silly animals.) For this reason, someone has to walk down to the pasture and check the perimeter. Freeing them requires tugging, pulling, and sometimes loss of an eartag.

I took this photo at dusk from the pasture looking up to the barn. That oat field does look inviting.

We sent the sheep to pasture this week, but not before a rainbow touched down behind the barn.

In preparation for the foray into grass we vaccinate and worm every animal. Caroline arrived home from college just in time to help. Literally, the minute she stepped out of her car we told her to put her boots on and come to the barn.

This invasive weed is wild mustard (sinapis arvensis), not leafy spurge. I brought a few samples to the office and research showed it to be wild mustard. Bob was right all along.

It's not great news, however, as the weed has taken over both alfalfa fields and spread into the pasture. The seeds are toxic and cause gastrointestinal problems if consumed in large quantities by our sheep. No wonder they don't like this plant.

The good news is that the field is full of bees and other pollinators right now.